Mario Botta Quotes

All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.

I work a little bit like a sculptor. When I start, my first idea for a building is with the material. I believe architecture is about that. It's not about paper, it's not about forms. It's about space and material.

A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.

As an architect, you have to provide a shelter to enjoy art. And you have to love art. It's like when you make a concert hall. You must love music. This is the reason why you make the space, to enjoy music - making a space for art is the same thing.

You cannot design shoes if you only think about fashion; it's too realistic. When I design, I dream.

Architecture is not based on concrete and steel, and the elements of the soil. It's based on wonder.

I think architecture, to be really intense and fulfilling, doesn't have to be large.

Architecture struck me between the eye and the eyeball.

Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.

The secret of good architecture is having more than meets the eye.

A painting doesn't have to have a real usability other than you looking at it. Obviously, a car, an engine, or battery has to fit people's needs.

When I started designing in school, I discovered that I had a knack for it. I fell completely in love with architecture, and I remain in love with it.

Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and architecture.

I'm inspired by many things, from landscapes to textiles. Art and architecture always influence my design process.

What I try to do is the art of building, and the art of building is the art of construction; it is not only about forms and shapes and images.

I don't build because I am an architect. I can make true architecture because I do not build.

Architecture is inhabited sculpture.

The process I go through in the art and the architecture, I actually want it to be almost childlike. Sometimes I think it's magical.

It was the drawing that led me to architecture, the search for light and astonishing forms.

A building is no good if someone's got to explain to you why it's good. You can't say you don't know enough about architecture - that's ridiculous. It's got to work on many levels.

Architecture is a art when one consciously or unconsciously creates aesthetic emotion in the atmosphere and when this environment produces well being.

I don't know any architects that I respect who don't have their own voice. I think the difference between architecture and the other arts is your immersion in reality.

Space is the breath of art.

For me, how an appliance looks is as important as how efficiently it works.

There's a side of fashion that's very analytical and data-oriented and methodical, but there's also a side of it that's just like magic. You can't quite put your finger on it, and you can't quite describe or prescribe a formula for how to get that magic exactly, but when you feel it and when you see it, you know that's what it is. It's magic.